Story Time
by ErykahMiszti
Summary: Spike talks honestly about his past, when he was William. Suspend disbelief a tad for the ending. ;-) Based a round Fool For Love, but set sometime in the future.


Title: Story Time

Author: Erykah

Email: erykah@hamadryad.com

Website: http://www.sweet-poison.net/ 

Summary: Spike talks honestly about his past, when he was William. Suspend disbelief a tad for the ending. ;)

Spoilers: Based a round Fool For Love, but set sometime in the future.

Rating: PG-13 (for language)

Disclaimer: At least a couple of these characters and situations belong to Joss Whedon and some big corporations. Many many, blessings to Joss and his evil writer cohorts. Thanks for the inspiration (and please don't sue me!)

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"Okay, now shut your gob and listen up. If I'm gonna do this, then I'll be telling it MY way and that means no interruptions and no smart comments from the peanut gallery. You want honesty? Fine, you're gonna have it.."

*Spike moves so he's sitting cross-legged and lights up a cigarette*

"And don't try to hurry me along. It's been a long time and there's not much about this that I've wanted to remember. "

"Now, where to start? *Smirk* 'I'm born'? *sneer* Heh, too young to get that, eh? They don't teach you the good stuff in school. "

"School.. now there's a place to start, maybe. I could tell you about my school days. Yeah, I did actually go to school. You wouldn't have believed it. We had to work hard, not like you lot these days. And the uniforms, all stiff and formal. Not that you don't wear uniforms. What? You don't think you wear uniforms? You do.. you just pick them yourselves. *mocking look* Such rebels!"

"I quite liked school. What's that? You didn't think they had school back then.. sure they did, just not for the poor kids. Heh, no I wasn't a poor kid. Not that we were rich. We weren't toffs.. not that mother would've ever admitted that. To hear her talk we were part of the nobility. *laugh* You'd have thought she knew Queen V personally."

"No, we were middle class. Not that you could understand what that means. Class was everything back then.. more important than money in a way. Money didn't buy you class. We weren't rich but we did have breeding on our side. The fact that we had enough money to back up our social position was just an added bonus." 

"You wanna know more about my family? Fine. Two parents, four kids.. Two boys, two girls. I was the youngest. Little golden child.. pampered and spoilt. I had the best of everything.. best education, best clothes.. no cares as a kid, no responsibilities. Charles was the eldest, ten years older than me. He had all the responsibilities. He was going to take over the family business and follow in father's footsteps. He did." *sneer*

"Father.. humph.. now there's a thing. I don't remember him much. He was hardly ever home. I didn't know why but I remember mother always being angry about him not being there. I soon found out though though, but not from the family.. I found out in the schoolhouse, from the other kids. Father was a fool, a drunk, a gambler, an adulterer.. he spent money like it was going out of style. He didn't waste away our money like in some Barbara Cartland fairytale.. no, he died long before he could do that.."

*blue eyes turn to ice and mouth sets into a hard line*

"It was a fire.. brothel burnt down to the ground. Didn't just take out good ol' dad, but big brother was right there too."

"It wasn't some sleazy knocking shop. We weren't the only well off family that got the shame of having relatives die there that night. But that didn't make it any better. Shit sticks and reputation was everything."

*sharp inhale on the cigarette*

"I was eight years old. Everything changed over night. And there I was, the eldest son of scandal ruined family.. all the responsibility of being the head of the family came to me. My sisters, Lizzie and Evelyn, they were both older than me but protecting them became a part of my duty. The fun times were well and truly over."

"Mother retreated inside herself. Social position had always meant a lot to her, but especially now. We had to be the most responsible, the most respectable family in the neighbourhood.. in our social circle as they moved between all the fashionable spots.. London.. Bath. She never meant it to hurt but I lost count of how many times she reminded me of our need for respectability.. "The blood will out in you, William." She used to say. "You're the same as your father and brother.. you must fight it." Dragged me to church all the damn time.. got me in the sodding choir.. all to beat the "evil" in my blood."

"Heh, what a responsibility to heap on a child.. call them "evil" and say you're the same. I said no interruptions.. don't try to analyze me. I'm a vampire. I AM evil. That's nothing to do with what I was then. It's what I am now. Oh, redemption..? Is that what I've heading to now..? Right." *mocking look*

"I fought so hard to not be like my father.. I was good, upright, honest. No fighting, not even when the other kids taunted about my family. I never fought back. I was a repressed little bugger. My hands would itch to punch them back but it would have broken my mother's heart. I wanted to be good, for her. But it burned to not fight back. I convinced myself it was wrong to want to. It just showed that I was the same as my father. Wanting to fight back was wrong, wanting to hurt them was wrong."

"Now, don't get the impression that I had a bad childhood. It wasn't bad. I wasn't abused. I just grew up in a house full of women. Yeah, we had a few male attendants but mostly I was with my mother and sisters. You didn't mix with the lower orders. Mother's golden rule. We had our place in respectable society to think about and that meant being better and more respectable than every other family. She taught me to be a gentlemen.. polite and courteous. I learnt the right way to live, to respect women, to be the very model of civilised man. God, it was dull!"

*Grinds out his cigarette*

"So I did the only thing I could. I did what all poncey little tortured souls do.. I turned to books. In literature I found whole other worlds filled with beauty, light and spectacle. It filled my soul and it wasn't long before I picked up a pen and wrote. Poems.. yeah, yeah.. laugh. That's what everyone who found out did. Not that I cared. I was building a world of my own with my pen."

"What kind of poems..? Ha, death and violence? The pathetic repressed creature I was back then..? Humph, no.. it's worse than that.. I wrote love poems. Oh yeah, laugh some more. That's not me anymore, so why should I care! *glares* Don't pull that face! On with the story, eh?"

"Something was missing, right.. That's what it felt like. That's what the books told me. There was a better world but whatever I did, nothing was enough. Father's business ran itself. It always had.. wouldn't have survived his reckless lifestyle if it hadn't. We had enough money to keep our small house in the country and rent a house in London. We spent more and more time there over the years. Mother wanted us to be seen, to get us married off.. secure our position in society by marrying. The girls did great. They were pretty and smart, and smart enough to hide that. Mother taught them well and, if they weren't totally in love with their husbands, then they still made a go of it. That's how it was then. Marrying well was supposed to make you happy. I guess, it made them happy. Although I think Lizzie and her daughters did end up as suffragettes." *grin*

"I wanted more than marriage for social position. I wanted love. Moved from one dopey lovesick obsession to the next. "

*Pulls out another cigarette and lights it *

"Beyond pathetic. Writing poems about my heart breaking without them. Ha! Makes me sick to think of it. "

"I read everything I could get my hands. Social reform was big at the time. We were creating this modern, civilised, ordered society. It sounded better then than it does now. I was all righteous indignation at the uncivilized piss poor state of the world. Control was the key, the books said. Discipline. Every ideal my mother stood for and drummed into me after my father's death." 

"I took a job teaching. Mother hit the roof through. Why..? *chuckle* I was teaching poor kids. She couldn't understand why I was bothering with the lower classes. Said if I wanted to teach, then it should be at some posh school.. only time I ever went against her wishes. Felt bad about it though, soft git, huh?"

"Compulsory education for all didn't come in until after I was turned.. one of the results of our big "moral crusade". *sneer* I worked at a private school.. the parents paid.. trying to raise their kids out of the gutter. Didn't bloody work but sounded like a good idea. Really modern and radical goings on.. moralizing shit. I didn't see those kids as people. They were scum.. uncivilized little bastards.. I hated them. Yeah, hated them. They were dirty, uncontrolled. They even spoke a different language.. words I'd never heard before. They played and they fought, ripped the holy shit out of each other. They'd come in for classes black and blue, all blood and bruises. Street fighting, that's what they did.. for sport. "

"I tried to instill discipline in them.. morality.. respectability.. they hated me." *shrug* I was so sure it was the right thing.. good for my soul to save the wildest of the bunch. I was a right moralizing prig. I was above them all.. trying to save them. Except, they didn't want to be saved. They didn't want my help to rise above. But it didn't touch me. I was better than them. I wasn't like them. Didn't want to be like them. *snort* Kept telling myself that. "

"My own society was just as bad, in a different way. Parties were torture but mother would make me go and I wanted to please her. Show her I was the dutiful son. So, off I'd trot.. parties in our neighbours homes.. at the local assembly rooms. I'd make polite conversation with all the right people.. let mother introduce me and play matchmaker, but my heart wasn't in it. As soon as I could, I'd go sit in a corner and compose my poems, watching them dance out of the corner of my eye. Telling myself I wasn't jealous. I was above them. They were fools and they didn't understand me or my 'better world'." 

*grinds out cigarette* 

"And I'd hear them gossip like cackling chickens. Always the latest scandal to chat about. *sneer* The same way they'd talked about my father and my brother. They were scum too, when you got down to it. I just wanted to find something clean and pure. Oh, laughing again..? How many times! That was me then.. not now!" *rolls eyes* 

"Then I saw her. Cecily Marsh. She was so beautiful, so righteous. Everyone loved her. *shrug* I couldn't help myself. She didn't gossip with the others. She held herself above everyone, like she was a bloody princess or something. I wrote endless poems about her. Real soppy stuff. I was so sure we were right for each other, if only I could make her see it." 

"But I was a ghost in her world. Invisible. She was a part of society and I held myself on the edge. She held herself so high because she ruled it. She didn't need to gossip because, in her mind, she was the best there was. On the marriage market, in our little social whirl, she was the star. My family was wrong. I was wrong. I wasn't rich enough, powerful enough, forceful enough. She wanted better than me. I was too ordinary for her to notice me, or want me." 

*a whiskey bottle comes flying in his direction and he catches it, then takes a long swallow* 

"She turned me down.. in the worst way." *sigh* "But then I met Dru. She saw me, really saw me. All the things I'd tried to hide. It was like she could see how much I envied those poor kids and their freedom, how I didn't want to fit into the world, saw how hard I was pretending to be something I wasn't. She gave me another world where I was powerful and strong."

*throws the bottle back and sneers* 

"End of story. Happy now you know..? Make you feel better, does it? Knowing that I was just like you once.. "

*Xander stares at Spike for a long moment, takes a drink from the bottle and puts it down on the table next to the couch. Spike watches him warily from his seat on top of the sarcophagus. Xander smiles suddenly and looks at the crypt door.*

"How about we head to the Bronze..?" He suggests jovially and Spike's eyes widen slightly. "The pool table might be free.."


End file.
